Word: westernness
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...some Nigerian cities, for example, an estimated two-thirds of the population suffer from some form of mental illness?mostly anxiety. Unable to teach such people, a number of Western-trained psychiatrists have lately employed witch doctors to allay their demon-ridden patients' fears?and only then succeeded in treating them...
...Nigeria?as distinctly as the steady current of the K-shaped river system that forms its skeleton?into three separate regions. To the north, living on flat grassland that backs up to Sahara sands, dwell the Hausa and Fulani, haughty, devout Moslem peoples governed locally by feudal emirs. The Western Region is the home of the Yoruba, a tribe known for its profusion of gods (more than 400) and its joie de vivre. To the east, where they are now trapped, the ambitious and clever Ibo people thrived. Brought forcibly together under colonial rule, the three regions developed the hatreds...
...always been so. When the British arrived in Nigeria, the Ibos were among the most primitive people they encountered, scratching out their lives on yam patches and occasionally supplementing their low-protein diet with human flesh. But within their backward tribal culture lay unique seeds for Western-style self-improvement. Unlike many other tribes, they had no autocratic village chiefs. Instead, they were ruled by open councils of what sociologists call high achievers?successful yam farmers...
...federal government bitterly admits that it has come out second best in the war of words. Nigerian Minister of Transport Joseph Tarka last week took pains to set one matter straight. "The Western press printed many pictures of the so-called rats sold in African markets for human consumption," he said. "I can tell you that the so-called rat is a real delicacy in our part of the world, and I'd rather eat your so-called rats than your damned frog's legs." Gowon, who has recently begun reading books about the American Civil War, seems resigned...
Airlift as Symbol. Ojukwu's fear of mass poisoning is not so ridiculous as it seems to the Western mind: the traditional way of doing in an enemy in Africa is to poison him, and Ibo lore abounds with such tales...